AARP CEO Barry Rand released a statement today on why AARP supports a new health care plan:

Doing nothing is not an option. But any reform must not get between a patient and their doctor. It must not cut Medicare benefits. It must not allow insurers to continue to line their pockets by covering only the healthiest and the youngest.

And those 50 - 60,000 members who quit since July 1? AARP says almost 1.8 million people have joined or renewed their memberships in the same period. AARP has 40 million members.

So, does AARP support Obama's health care bill as he said last week? It's not clear. After Obama made the comment, it responded:[More...]

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) released this statement today on the public option. A snippet:

A strong public option would ensure competition in the industry to provide the best, most affordable insurance for Americans and bring down the skyrocketing health care costs that are the biggest contributor to our long-term budget deficits. I am not interested in passing health care reform in name only. Without a public option, I don’t see how we will bring real change to a system that has made good health care a privilege for those who can afford it.”

Progressives keep ratcheting up the pressure. Via Firedoglake today: [More...]

If you are so inclined, you can support the Progressive Caucus monetarily AND tell them expressly why you are so doing here:

These are the progressive members of Congress with the guts to stand up to Big Insurance, Big Pharma and to the pressure from their own party bosses. They stood with the American people and ordinary working families when push came to shove and both political parties decided propping up a disastrous health care system and a corrupt Insurance Industry was more important than keeping the promise made over and over to working families. These were the men and women who promised to vote against any health care reform bill that didn't include, at the minimum, a robust public option. 57 signed a letter to Speaker Pelosi and 18 took the FDL Pledge.

[More...]

I wish Ezra Klein would just come clean and say he does not care about the public option:

[Howard] Dean's point was simple: "If you're not going to have a public option, don't have health-care reform, and strip all the money out of the bill." . . . I asked Dean how he could believe this, given that his 2004 health-care plan didn't contain a public plan but did contain a lot of dollars to fund expanded health coverage. He replied that it did contain a public plan. "It actually did have a public option. It allowed everybody over 55 to sign up for Medicare if they chose to. It allowed everyone under 25 to sign up for a Canadian-style system. It was optional." The argument behind the public plan -- the argument Dean is using now -- is that it competes with private insurance companies and transforms the entire insurance market. But this is, as Mark Schmitt says, a very new idea.

Suppose for a moment, it is a new idea, so what? Is it a good idea? Why doesn't Ezra write about that? Two potential explanations - one, he wants to label any health care plan an Obama win or two, he does not really support the public option. Time to come clean Ezra.

Speaking for me only

Via Yglesias, Mark Schmitt demonstrates why Democrats are terrible political negotiators:

Some have suggested using reconciliation to install the rough skeleton of reform, and then fixing it later, but the act of using reconciliation in the first place is such a nuclear option that it is likely to poison the waters not just with the four semi-reasonable Republicans but also with the Democrats who are left out of the deal, and will be needed on subsequent legislation.

(Emphasis supplied.) I can only shake my head. Poison the waters? Are you effing kidding me? You mean Chuck Grassley might not vote for health care reform? Sheesh. I am also struck by Yglesias finding noteworthy this screwball idea:

It's time to resurrect those motions to suppress based on cocaine traces found on currency. A new study presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society found:

In what researchers describe as the largest, most comprehensive analysis to date of cocaine contamination in banknotes, scientists are reporting that cocaine is present in up to 90 percent of paper money in the United States, particularly in large cities such as Baltimore, Boston, and Detroit. The scientists found traces of cocaine in 95 percent of the banknotes analyzed from Washington, D.C., alone.

The study was conducted by Yuegang Zuo, Ph.D., a a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry & the School of Marine Science and Technology at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth in North Dartmouth, Mass.

Time Magazine reports on the study here. Time says in 2007, only 67% of U.S. currency had cocaine residue.( It doesn't mention that studies from the 90's showed a much higher percentage.) [More...]

It's almost time for "Weeds" and "Nurse Jackie" here, plus I'm preparing for a hearing early tomorrow on wiretap motions. There are so many of us that the Judge is limiting each lawyer to ten minutes of oral argument.

In other news, the Obama Administration has sent its report to Congress on human rights violations in Mexico, putting a favorable spin on them.

The AP reports AARP has lost 60,000 members over its support for Obama's health care plan. (I just sent in my renewal dues last week.)

If you're looking for our posts on the Supreme Court order in Troy Davis's death penalty case or the trial of Texas Judge Sharon Keller, they are here and here.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Just another reason of why snitch testimony should require corroboration and is inherently unreliable in my view. The AP reports on a huge identity theft indictment returned today in New Jersey:

Federal prosecutors on Monday charged a Miami man with the largest case of credit and debit card data theft ever in the United States, accusing the one-time government informant of swiping 130 million accounts on top of 40 million he stole previously.

[Albert] Gonzalez is a former informant for the U.S. Secret Service who helped the agency hunt hackers, authorities say. The agency later found out that he had also been working with criminals and feeding them information on ongoing investigations, even warning off at least one individual, according to authorities.

[More...]

Digby has two good posts on who has the most skin in the political game that is now health care reform. In the first she writes:

Charlie Cook just said something very profound (which is unusual.) Chris Matthews asked whether or not the Democrats would lose the House next year and he said he didn't think so, but that they might lose 20 seats. And then he said this:

But arguably the people they would lose would be the Blue Dogs who aren't voting with [the president] anyway.

That's the thing. It's the Blue Dogs who have most of the Congressional skin in this political game. They are going to need health care reform for their political lives. (They also needed a big stimulus so the economy would be seen as on the rebound in 2010). This is important for the progressive play on health care reform. The Progressive Caucus does not need health care reform politically. They come from safe districts. In fact, what they need is to be seen as fighting for progressive health care reform. They have leverage. And not just on the Blue Dogs. More . . .

The ethics trial of Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Sharon Keller began today in San Antonio. The alleged improprieties stem from her refusal to keep the court open past 5:00 pm so Michael Wayne Richard's lawyers could file their request for a stay of his execution later that night. Richard was executed hours later.

Keller is charged with five counts of judicial misconduct that could end her career. .... A Republican who has served on the court since 1994, Keller is the highest-ranking judge in Texas to be put on trial by the commission.

The last minute filing request by Richards' lawyers was the result of a decision by the Supreme Court that morning to hear the case of Kentucky v. Baze, challenging the three drug cocktail for lethal injections. [More...]

Interesting thought;

On CNN's "State of the Union," Democratic strategist James Carville became the first leading Democrat to suggest publicly that there might be political advantage in letting Republicans “kill” health care. “Put a bill out there, make them filibuster it, make them be what they are, the party of no,” Carville said. “Let them kill it. Let them kill it with the interest group money, then run against them. That's what we ought to do.”

If the notion that the GOP killing health care hurts them politically, then I assume that also is true for Blue Dog Dems. It means that progressives can be much more aggressive with health care reform, including the public option. I do not know if Carville really thinks what he said, nor do I know id he is right, but I think if people start to believe it is true, then that strengthens the bargaining position of progressives.

Speaking for me only

Hey guess what? Via Brian Beutler, the GOP won't support Conrad's Coops.

BTW. Ezra Klein is all over my TV telling me that really, the President can't do anything. Funny sh*t Ezra.

Speaking for me only